Conference. They also provided the video. We have three panelists today. I think i have this order right. Dr. Danielle mcguire who is a great friend from grad school and colleague. She is an author and historian and an independent scholar now and the author of tat the dark end of the street. We also have i have lost track of who is going. I think its kalonji is going next. Dr. Kalonji walton who is the director of global black studies at western carolina. And our third panelist is dr. David goldberg who is an associate professor at Wayne State University. The chair and commenter today is jamon jordan who is a the detroit president of the detroit chapter of asalh and a tour leader and historian of all things africanamerican detroit. Really an Incredible Community scholar out of detroit. A wonderful set of folks, going to help us think about politics in detroit and michigan and how to make sense of that. Im going to throw it over to the panel now. Again, thank you all for being here. All right, thank you, patrick. Hello, everybody. Again, my name is jamon jordan and im the chair. Im going to offer a couple of remarks quick before we start with the panel. Thank you for coming to this session and hearing a little bit about detroits politics, particularly its radical politics. And i think, of course, thank you to my panel for being here. Were talking about the mid20th century up until the beginning of the 21st century, their span of influence, that time period of rosa parks, john conyers and mayor young, really detroits radical black politics begin in 1800. A couple of things that happened in the 1800 that is really sets the stage for detroit being this hotbed of radical black politics is an uprising when 400 black people lead an up rise. People had escaped by slavery, they had been captured by slave catchers. And they will free first lucy by having a black woman go into the jail cell with her and switch clothes with her. Shes visiting the sheriff she switches clothes with lucy blackburn. He couldnt tell which one he should be letting out and which one was still there and so thats how she escapes. The next day, theres 400 people outside to free thornton blackburn. In the course of that, the sheriff will be killed. One of the people who passes the gun to thornton who is being transported by the slave catchers and hes given a gun is a man who is named madison lightfoot. He hands this gun to thornton is reverend madison lightfoot. At the onset of the black community organizing, you have people in the religious Community Involved in arms struggle against slavery. And so this is the beginning of really institutionbuilding by africanamericans. You got black People Living in the city of detroit. Now theyre going to start churches. They will found second baptist church. It will be the center of the underground radar and it will be the first black school in the city of detroit. Faith and freedom in detroit go hand and hand along with education. It will be the site for the 1846 colored convention in michigan, and one of the members, William Lambert, will petition and demand the right of the end of slavery, but for black people to have the right to vote, for black people to have schools. Hes making these demands during the period when most black people in the city of detroit are interested in ending slavery or helping people escape from slavery. Hes adding onto that. This is a radical demand. The legislature will respond to him the next year by passing a law that black people cant vote to make it clear where the state stood. That early history in the city of detroit, both the colored convention and this uprising of which William Lambert is a teenager, he plays a part. Hes 13 years old during the uprising and one of the people involved in the uprising. He goes on both sides and thats how these radical leaders in detroit do both William Lambert and his wife, jul Julia Lambert theyre petitioning for the right to vote. They dont see a contradiction in those two. Today, there are people who want you to be within one side or the other. But in the 1800s, it was all one struggle. I just wanted to give a background on how this happened. Of course, to important pieces of this are from montgomery, alabama or from alabama, the state of alabama, and we would have been in montgomery this year for the conference. Two of the subjects that will be talked about today are from alabama. Were going to start with dr. Mcguire. Shes going to give our first presentation. Shell introduce her topic herself. Thank you. I would to talk a little bit about rosa parks. Rosa parks is one of the most familiar historical figures in United States history. Almost every Public School kid could tell you who rosa parks is and what she did on one day of her life, right . The popular presentation of rosa parks is often as a quiet but courageous woman, a woman whose humble righteous shamed america into doing the right thing. A womans who foot fatigue brought down the cradle of the confederacy and this is the way shes presented in every single museum, textbook, popular presentation, as a quiet, humble and elderly woman who sat down so we could all stand. But in this version of history, rosa parks is living an invented life outside of history. Free from its context and constraints, shes presented, you know, as this matronly figure who has who acted on impulse and emotion rather than intelligence or conviction or a political agenda. Theres no sense of her as a leader, as a member of a politically active community, or as part of a group of citizens organized against systemic oppression. And shes always presented alone, as if one person can truly change history by sitting still. Right . So by telling a simplistic tale of rosa parks, we really limit our understanding of her, i think i think it hurts kids understanding of her radicalism, her importance in american democracy and it limits their understanding of what they can do to make change in their world too. So i always talk about how remight tawe might talk about her differently and we can teach young people, especially, about a more radical rosa parks. A rosa parks that had a really important day in december of 1955 but who had a life of commitment to radical politics and freedom. And so thats the rosa parks that i think we need to Start Talking more about. We dont have a lot of time today. And we could talk about rosa parks forever, at least i could, because i think shes such a fascinating historical figure, but let me just kind of go through things kind of quickly. Rosa parks grew up, you know, at the at the foot of her grandfather. From a very young age, she was steeped in the traditions of black nationalism. She was raised to take pride in her skin color, in her family, in her history, and in her roots. And she was raised to not take any mess from anybody. And she saw her grandfather and her family use armed selfdefense when necessary. When the ku klux klan marched through alabama, rosa parks was there waiting for her grandfather to get his shotgun. And she says in many of her autobiographical histories, she was hoping she could see her grandfather used that gun. She was raised in a family that believed in armed selfdefense and believed in black nationalism and she was steeped with pride in her history and her people. She married a man, not surprisingly, raymond parks, who carried a pistol in his pocket around town, right, as a way to defend himself from violence White Supremacists in the community. And from a very young age, this married couple held voter League Meetings in their home later in montgomery, alabama, in the early 1940s. In the late 1930s, they held armed meetings to try to organize around the defense of the scotts borough boys who were accused of raping two white women. She recalls sitting up late at night with groups of men with their guns piled on the dining room table talking about how they were going to work to free the scotts borough men and boys. In the 1943, she joined the montgomery chapter of the naacp. She did this after she attempted to vote and was denied and it was her third attempt to try to register to vote and her third denial. She decided she would join the montgomery naacp and they asked her to be secretary. We tend to think of her role as something that is about paperwork or filing or taking notes. But rosa parks was a field secretary. And what that meant was that she was the detective for that chapter. And they sent her throughout alabama investigating crimes, getting testimony from people who had been attacked or assaulted and bringing that information back to the montgomery chapter where they would decide how they wanted to respond. One of the biggest cases that she worked on right away in her career as secretary was the assault on reecy taylor. She was walking home from church when a group of white men kidnapped and raped her. She was dispatched to get tailors testimony which she did. And she carried it back to montgomery where she and the citys most militant black activists organized the committee. That came went international. It was one of the largest activist campaigns in the United States in 1944 and 1945, second only really to, i think, the scotts borough case of the 1930s. Rosa parks did that kind of work throughout the 1940s and into the early 1950s and its that work at the center of black radicalism in alabama that puts her at the center of the montgomery bus boycott. She knew they were looking for plaintiffs to test segregated transportation. She knew that the two women who had already been arrested werent going to be used by the Montgomery Branch of the naacp for a variety of reasons and when the opportunity presented itself to get arrested, she took it. She knew what that would entail. She knew she could go to jail. She knew what that meant as a black woman to go to jail in alabama. So she took on extraordinary risk. Throughout the bus boycott, we think that she just got arrested and that was it. But she was a primary fund raiser for the Boycott Movement in montgomery and the naacp flew her all around the country where she gave speeches and raised tens of thousands of dollars. This is incredible because we often think of her as someone who didnt speak that much, as a quiet person. While she may have been soft spoken, she was vocal about her resistance to White Supremacy and oppression. She was a real active speaker during those years. Whats interesting is i found a document in Boston College in the king papers there where rosa parks requested armed guards for her home in montgomery because she was a frequent target of white supremacist violence. And so you could see that tradition of her supporting armed resistance, selfdefense throughout the bus boycott. Finally she feels so unsafe in alabama that she decides to move to detroit which she called the Promised Land that wasnt. Everything she hoped for, you know the ability to move freely through the world, the ability to have access to a goodpaying job, decent housing, all of that didnt happen in detroit. It was just as segregated, just as unequal, just as many limits as there was in alabama. She set about doing what she had always done which was to resist that, to organize in the community, to build networks, to join organizations, opposing things like segregated housing, and pushing for better Educational Opportunities for kids in her neighborhood and in her community. She eventually began to work with john conyers which was her first paid political position, which was really incredible. And then she worked with him for the rest of her life. In detroit, she joined black power groups. She supported the black panthers. She was an antivietnam war organizer. She opposed apartheid. She marched in washington against apartheid and against the vietnam war. She had this long history as a radical activist. A history that was rooted in r garvism. She gave the eulogy for robert. If he was a leader out of North Carolina who become exiled from the United States and went to cuba and china. Rosa parks delivered his eulogy. Thats the company she kept. Thats the world she was immersed in and thats the work she did throughout her entire life. So i think we need to start telling rosa parks story, move her away from that bus scene in montgomery, move her more towards the radical politics that she was a part of throughout her long history and that rosa parks, that rosa parks will interest young people and old people and everyone in between from now until the end of time. Thanks. Thank you, dr. Mcguire. Real quick about some recent news about rosa parks is that the home she lived in for a short period of time is now in spain. It was in germany for a little bit while. I want us to move away from her sitting on that bus and move into her more radical politics, move away from that home that she lived in for a very short period of time, it was her brothers home, and move to the house that she was living in when she was involved in all of this radical politics. I am part of the state committee that is going to make that an historic site. Thats her Virginia Park home which is in the Virginia Park neighborhood. The neighborhood where the 1967 rebellion occurred. Its in the same community. Not far from the baptist church. I just want us to understand that the way history is presented in the popular media just as dr. Mcguire said about rosa parks, the same thing goes on about these historic sites, including her home. Youve seen an article about her home was taken from detroit and is now going through europe, that is not really her home. Thats all i wanted to say. Im going to introduce our next presenter which will be kalonji walton and ill let him introduce his topic. Thank you, everyone, that is joining us and my topic is briefly the dean congressman john conyers from the Congressional Black Caucus to hr40 which is known as the reparations investigate commission, for lack of a better way to put it. Theres a lot of mix up that it was a bill for reparations. It was a bill to study the potential of reparations, the nuances of reparations, who would qualify, and those types of things. So its an exploratory commission that he wanted to have established. I first want to say that im not going to address his exwifes scandal nor his Sexual Harassment allegations, but i want to mention that they exist in all fairness. Anyway, its important to note that congressman conyers was a military veteran, he was an officer in the army, he was a korean war veteran prior to his education at Wayne State University with he received a bachelors degree and an llb law degree and he first was integrated into white liberal politics in detroit as a staffer for congressman john dingell. Thats important. It was via the white liberal establishment. However, he had history just like mayor Coleman Young as being a labor activist. He was a labor attorney and a referee for the michigan Workers Compensation department. That is where he got his start in detroit in the struggle and in politics in that regard, activism and embasbecause of th history in detroit, he first was introduced, respectively, to radical politics, black and white radical politics. John dingell, the liberal politics, the Labor Movement, radical politics. He benefitted from preexisting and continued black nationalism and black radicalism in detroit as well as white liberalism and white radicalism. Thats important to note. Im not going to list a long the long list of black radical and black nationalist organizations in detroit during that time and prior to, but its important to mention people like dr. Charles h. Wright, which the museum is named after, he wrote a book about paul roberson. If people dont realize that, who was a close friend of him. We have the Orthodox Church the shrine of the black madonna. As well as republic after africa. I could go on and on and on. But its key that we understand that without those preexisting liberal politics, radical politics, black and white, what john conyers achieved and what he sought out to do would not have been as realistic or really possible. If we sidestep that and were ignoring history, right, john conyers was the first nonpolish well, second nonpolish and first black congressman from the original First District in michigan. That is key. The only other nonpolish prior to him goes back to prohibition. And that was clancy. That is his claim to fame outside of being nonpolish, right. Congressman conyers was elected in 1964. If we check across the country, this wave of black elected officials outside of people like adam clayton powell, right, we see it after the black power movement. This is prior to the black power movement. And he would win in that district as well as that same Geographic Area after various manifestations of redistricting, 25 reelections, 25 reelections, all of them, except for one, he won by a margin of over 84 . One was 77 . That was his low mark. 77 . Those are great numbers if we look at it, right . But that was made possible by those the support and those coalitions that that is pointed out in the book, white liberals, black liberals, white radicals, black white conservatism. Right . Indeed, thats the book right there, and he was the first dean of the house of representatives, the first black dean of the house of representatives. Third longest serving member of the house and six longest serving Congress Member in u. S. History. Those things are important. I do have criticisms of when people stay too long and then thwarts or returns next generations of black leadership, but thats a different conversation, right . Now, he was one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus founded in 1969. Another one, Charles Diggs from detroit was a cofounder, as well, right . And it was partially spark